Two fish and five loaves

We had some rather interesting observations from the young technology professionals symposium which you can read in more detail here from our research report http://bit.ly/bHEIr9 but what stood out was that young professionals are hungry for knowledge to get them established firmly in their careers. Although the symposium was slated to end at 3pm we carried on until 5pm as the questions and sessions involved practical job interviews and required role playing.

And so great was the demand that we plan to hold several industry specific symposia in 2011 to address the technology needs of different sectors- media, manufacturing, health, education, telecoms, the list is endless.

The turn up was overwhelming as we got twice the number of participants we had planned for and we had to be very 'creative' in ensuring the two fish and five loaves were sufficient for the crowd. Along the same vein, I think it was a great lesson in entrepreneurship, sometimes you don't really need a cartload of resources to create a sizzling hot event but you do need a lot of creativity and a team with plenty of faith.

Our two fish and five loaves initiative has given us great advantages- grown our fan base, sold our brand, and (unashamedly) positioned Enterprise Technology http://on.fb.me/9S6aRG as strategic partners in reaching tech-nified young professionals.

Until the next miracle- Cheers.

QBCD syndrome

Qualified But Cant Do (QBCD) is a syndrome that has become synonymous with entry level graduates in East Africa. Employers often complain that fresh graduates have all the required technology qualifications but cannot put into practice what they have learnt.

Consequently Enterprise Technology magazine has decided to host a technology symposium targeting University students where students will receive skills in making their technology qualifications workplace relevant.

The rationale is that by having experienced technology practitioners (both intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs) engage with the students and fresh graduates in interactive Q&A sessions, fresh eyed potential employees can write better resumes that can get them in the door for an interview where they can sell themselves since they are now acutely aware of what employers are looking for.

We've come up with a great topic list addressing issues like techpreneurship; how to transition from a great intern to a valued employee; technology adoption in government organizations; essential BPO skills; and of course selling 'free stuff' like Open source.

The symposium tone will be very tongue-in-cheek and unconventional- not the usual lecture type conference where we are spoken at and have only 5 minutes to ask questions. This time we want to hear from the students.

Now if only potential sponsors could loosen those purse strings...

Keep it Simple and Stupid

If we examine the technologies that actually garner millions of followers and that actually achieve a 'single-minded purpose' and that remain relevant for years to come without users hankering for this tweak and this fix and this feature, it becomes obvious that these are very few and far in between.

I am most impressed by craigslist.org and Google.com. These sites are 'simple and stupid'. A simple stupid technology is clutter-free in other words it does not try to pack all the James Bond movies feature into one product. It recognizes the fact that users are not the same and so it starts at the lowest level-the 'stupid' Vs the higher level- the 'sophisticated/seasoned/savvy' by simply being very very easy to use. No bells, no whistles, just the knocker.

Craig Newmark, Brin and Page have one thing in common- they are single-minded. What do we want to do? 'Offer a simple way to find information, nothing else.' And it works. The pages are very simple, plain white and everything is stupidly simple- you leave the sites with a great feeling that you actually brilliant because you managed to find what you were looking for.

This means you're not going to have to give 'fixes', tweak prototypes, troubleshoot features-which means you can simply concentrate on improving your core competence and doing it well.

Which brings me to Uganda's online voters display-managed by the electoral commission. http://41.210.167.106/nvr/. This is another simple stupid site which is successful because it achieves its aim of displaying registered voters (albeit the inaccuracies present) in a very simple step by step manner.

Cellphones, for example: In East Africa most people use cellphones only to call and send text messages. GPS, Bluetooth, web browsing, picture taking are all a second take for the savvy. Additionally, the most popular phone has been that one with a torch probably because of the chronic power shortages at night and the low electrification rates especially in rural areas.

My take is that if you want mass adoption of an innovation-don't try to straddle one hundred markets-be single minded in what you want it to do and make sure it does that one thing well. (I think partly this is the reason Google.com is so successful-search search search.)

Internet Governance and absentee telecoms

When regional technology and telecom related conferences are convened and the telecoms and ISPs are glaringly absent, the digital gap gets harder to bridge. Telecoms are notorious for fighting policies that lower prices and increase usage, deeming them unfair to their business practices. These telecoms are oblivious to the fact that many of these policies emanate from such conferences many of them regional, with attendees like government policy makers, influential business persons, who want win-win situations.

The telecoms (including those who are sponsors) however see no business value and therefore will not even send a representative to articulate their views, whereas these same telecoms will send entire contingents to social events where they can show how 'smart they are'. How about smarts at events that have long term value?

Goodbye laptops, hello i-things

And I mean that literally. Here is my own real life example: After a long planning session for issue 5 of the magazine, I packed up my red Dell XPS and resolved not to open it again that day. (It has really become tedious for me to gather up all the cables; first you remove the mouse cable-oh the wireless mice i've used are horrendous and always jerk; then you remove the AC adapter, then you unplug your modem then you pack everything into your laptop bag.)

You get in the car and then remember that you must place the laptop bag somewhere clearly out of sight otherwise you'll become a sitting duck for the laptop thugs that can break into your car and be off with the laptop in under a minute.

Now having successfully managed to go through the evening without touching the laptop (I'd been enjoying the Dixie Chicks Landslide album on the iPod) I remembered that I had to urgently reply a writer who was submitting an article for the magazine. Drat drat...but wait, I have an Orange wireless modem and hey my iPod...Eureka!

Connecting...logged in to my gmail and even with the small pesky keys (Where's the stylus when you need it) I was able to write a decent email to the potential contributor and check my other mail--all in a day's work.

Now, if only I can get my hands on the even more resourceful iPad, why would I ever consider buying a laptop? It is sad, but the way I see it, smaller (read i-things-pod, pad, ped etc) computing gadgets are way more convenient and accessible and are definitely the next big thing. Impromptu board meetings, brainstorming sessions, away from office and need to keep in the loop--small is easy to brandish.

Goodbye laptops, hello i-things.

Give us this day our daily fraud

When IDC and BSA (South Africa) start making up statistics to sway policy, http://techdirt.com/articles/20100719/00264510262.shtml , I begin to wonder what exactly is sparking off this trend in research houses considering that access to their reports (beyond the enticing table of contents) costs several thousands of dollars. Has the recession bitten research houses too?

There are many ironies in this skewed picture:
1. Emerging markets (where a lot of the research is being done in recognition of the fact that developed countries are getting saturated) have millions of idle people who would willingly collect data for a dollar a day to feed the research agencies. Why don't they put these idle people to good use?

2. Why are the reports so damn expensive when the usually quoted (and now suspect) statistic (Africans live on less than a dollar a day) suggests they cannot afford these reports that are targeting their countries?

3. Whatever happened to using simple logic to debate and persuade rather than statistics that no one can prove or disprove.

I've always wondered why whenever there are surveys in Kampala I never get interviewed- neither does my social or professional circle. Where do these statistics (especially the ones about ICT usage) come from? Now I know...

Give me Linux (With empirical evidence!)

Every month the Linux argument is resurrected on I-Network Uganda (http://d2.dgroups.org/iicd/i-network/) ; should we migrate to Linux or shouldn't we? The debate is usually sparked by a less than savvy technology practitioner asking for a solution to wipe off the latest virus disabling her network. The reply will be as follows:
1. Try anti-virus...2. Wipe your machine 3. Use linux because its more secure, less virus prone...etc a whole paragraph long.

The distressed technology practitioner will then reply and say : "Yeah I've heard of Linux but isn't too difficult to use etc?"

The Linux proponent will then provide a whole range of users and address all the problems, and then a couple of other timid proponents will throw in a word or two.

In the Jan/Feb issue of Enterprise Technology magazine, Simon Vass closes his discussion on Ubuntu with great insight by highlighting a variety of Linux support organizations in Uganda.

The problem is not that Linux is not good enough--the biggest problem with the Linux community in East Africa is that they don't blow their Vuvuzelas enough (publishing case studies online, getting covered in mainstream media, marketing, advertising as one body) to the people who would actually use the software. They preach to the converted in monthly Linux meetings and when opportunity arises to pitch to a potential convert, they spew knowledge and fall short on giving empirical evidence in well designed attractive marketing collateral or setting up a no obligations consultation with the customer. Give me Linux any day, but come with testimonials I can relate to, not geek speak.

Plenty of white elephants in East Africa

The word "nfunirawa" comes from Luganda, a popular dialect spoken in the East African country of Uganda, and is loosely translated to mean "What's in it for me?". Companies that try to sell technology solutions and services in East Africa will often find this word used in the upper echelons where you are expected to 'line' the pockets of the technology decision maker who is already earning a salary that allows him to travel abroad on holiday more than once a year- in comparison to the rank and file who foot daily to work.

Because technology vendors are not selected on suitability or practicality but for the ability to line the pockets of the final decision maker(and sometimes his underlings) technologies implemented do not solve the problem for which they were implemented or 'almost' which as we know, does not count.

As a result, we find plenty of white elephants--technology projects that have only taken off theoretically(national ID project); technology projects that have died in infancy(rural internet projects); technology projects that do not factor in pressing issues like power availability, maintenance cost, local ownership (one-laptop per child); technology projects that do not include lowly stakeholders who unfortunately will be the major users of the technology-secretaries, assistants(consequently pcs gather dust or are used only to check personal email); the list of failed projects is long enough, unfortunately so is the list of donations for the ICT sector , whose donors will be satisfied with reports stating minimal results or a poorly crafted website.

We need to ask why with all the technology available in East Africa, the best ranked company in East Africa is KENOLKOBIL (EX-KENYA OIL CO.) at 79 out of 500 according to the The Africa Report http://www.theafricareport.com/rankings/top-500-companies.html. At a distant 139 is Safaricom then a distance off at 176 is Total Kenya. In other words, even though East Africa has 'invested' heavily in technology, the region's businesses do not seem to be earning as much as their West African or North African counterparts which have made similar investments in technology.

Must you push boxes?

A month ago I had a brief but revealing conversation with a brilliant technology salesman. He had just quit his job in a leading technology vendor (because they were fidgeting with his commission) and had landed a better salary paying job which was being frustrated by the lack of tact of the 'boss'. This brilliant salesman said to me:
"Some companies think it's useless to sell boxes--pcs, laptops, printers. If you look at if face value, it does look so but in my previous company where we used to sell boxes, we got high value business out of customers who after buying boxes would ask us for high end solutions-license maintenance, data centre set up, network management and so forth."

I say: "Go on."

"In this new company, the MD says he does not want to push boxes because the margins are too low--but he does not even have operating capital and he is not bringing in new customers because he only markets the company as a services vendor- not boxes."

I say: "If you've got it flaunt it! Give customers a reason to step into your shop."